Today’s cars are rolling computers, often maintaining a constant connection to the internet and gathering an immense amount of data on drivers. Many of us climb into a vehicle and instantly connect it to our smartphones, linking two of the devices that know the most about us so they can talk to each other.
That’s a powerful tool for anyone trying to track you.
The auto industry’s largest trade association wants Congress to do something about it.
Mock Legislation From Carmakers Themselves
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation is the auto industry’s largest American trade group. Like most trade associations, it hosts events for industry leaders to talk to each other and conducts public relations on behalf of the industry. And, like most trade associations, it lobbies the government.
This week, the group asked Congress to take action on car stalking, offering proposed legislation “developed with organizations dedicated to supporting domestic violence survivors.” The proposal is timed to match National Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month.
It would attempt to solve a critical problem domestic violence prevention groups have repeatedly pointed out — the person who drives a car most often isn’t always the registered owner of that car. Sometimes, victims of domestic violence drive vehicles registered to their abusers.
Those cars often track their own movements. Registered owners, logically, can use apps to see that data. That can allow an abuser to track their victim’s movements.
The legislation, the alliance says, would “enable survivors to quickly terminate or disable an abuser’s access to a vehicle’s connected services, even if the abuser is the account holder.”
Sometimes, Even Industry Wants Government to Regulate Industry
Couldn’t automakers just enact that policy themselves? Not necessarily, the group says.
Existing laws don’t allow automakers to block the registered owner’s access to in-car telematics, the industry term for the data cars gather. The proposed law would give them the legal ability to do so in emergencies.
Related: VW Makes Some Safety Services Free After Kidnapping Incident
If Congress acts, automakers could safely write policies that let them protect domestic violence survivors.
Automakers Have a Privacy Problem
The move comes as the auto industry struggles with a serious perception problem. During the last two years, multiple news stories have shown automakers have a privacy problem.
In 2023, privacy researchers from the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation found cars “the official worst category of products [they had] ever reviewed.” They noted that drivers often consent to give automakers data well beyond simple driving information. That consent is typically buried in the reams of paperwork new car buyers sign and signed under conditions that keep buyers from reading it thoroughly.
A series of New York Times reports also showed that many automakers collect data every time you drive and sell it to third parties who sell it to insurance companies. General Motors changed its practices after the reporting, but other companies have not responded.
Two Senators recently asked the Federal Trade Commission to stop the practice, but the agency has not yet acted.
